Reasons The Resurrection Was So Important To Early Christians: Reason #2

Five Reasons Why The Resurrection Was So Important To The First Christians:


2. The Resurrection and Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God

The second reason why the resurrection of Jesus was so important to the early church is closely related to the first and can be summarized in this way: The resurrection of Jesus from the dead confirmed his proclamation that the kingdom of God had made its appearance in his life and ministry. Put negatively, if God had not raised Jesus from the dead there would have been little reason to believe in Jesus’ proclamation that God’s rule was making its appearance in his ministry.

The Gospels attest that central content of Jesus’ proclamation was the imminent appearance of God’s rule. By healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead, and overcoming the chaotic forces of nature Jesus demonstrated what he proclaimed: the kingdom of God is at hand. To be sure, the kingdom had not yet arrived in all of its power and glory. That would only happen with the glorious appearance of Jesus at the end of the age. But there could be no doubt from Jesus’ preaching that he saw his ministry as the way in which God was inaugurating the kingdom in his ministry and that the consummation of all things was at hand.

Jesus’ ignominious death on the cross, however, called into question his central proclamation. If he was truly the one through whom God was reasserting his rule over history and creation, why was he put to death as a messianic pretender? If Jesus was the one through whom God’s kingdom was overcoming the rule of Satan, why did the powers of Sin and Death overcome God’s anointed one. Was the kingdom of Satan more powerful than the kingdom of God that Jesus had proclaimed? And if Jesus did not rise from the dead, how could he return at the end of ages to inaugurate the fullness of God’s kingdom?

Once again it was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead that enabled his disciples to reaffirm their faith in him. By raising him from the dead, God demonstrated in a new and more powerful way that the kingdom of God had made its appearance in Jesus. The disciples’ encounter with the risen Lord convinced them that the one who had proclaimed the kingdom had entered into the fullness of the kingdom that he proclaims. As the first to rise from the dead, Jesus was the first to enter into the fullness of the kingdom, the new creation that God had established in the one whom Paul calls “the first-born from the dead” (Col 1:18).

Just as God vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead, so God vindicated Jesus’ proclamation about the kingdom of God by raising him the dead. The early church learned that Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom was true because he had entered into the kingdom through his resurrection form the dead.

Father Matera

Note: This series of columns is taken from a book I am writing on The Resurrection of the Dead